Tides of History

Everywhere around us are echoes of the past. Those echoes define the boundaries of states and countries, how we pray and how we fight. They determine what money we spend and how we earn it at work, what language we speak and how we raise our children. From Wondery, host Patrick Wyman, PhD (“Fall Of Rome”) helps us understand our world and how it got to be the way it is.

History does not repeat itself, but it does rhyme, said Mark Twain. From the fall of the Roman Empire to the rise of the modern world: history ebbs and flows over the centuries, driven by great tides of economic, social, political, religious, and cultural change that shape the world and everyone who lives on it. In this new series from Wondery, PhD historian Patrick Wyman (Fall of Rome) brings the cutting edge of that history to listeners in plain, relatable English. Premieres July 20th.

History shapes our world in ways both seen and unseen. In the introductory episode of Tides of History, we explore two major tides - the Fall of Rome and the Rise of the Modern World - and why history matters in the here and now.

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We take for granted that central governments - sovereign states - are the ultimate political force in the world, but it wasn't always this way. Between 1350 and 1650, this form of government vanquished city-states, town leagues, and smaller lordships to dominate first Europe and then the world. In this episode of Tides of History, we explore how that happened.

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When we talk about the fall of the Roman Empire, we're only talking about the western half - France, Spain, Italy, North Africa, and Britain. The eastern half of the Roman Empire survived the disastrous fifth century and would last in one form or another until 1453. What was so special about the eastern half of the Roman Empire, and how did it avoid the fate of its western cousin?

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While the western half of the Roman Empire was collapsing, the east managed to weather the storm of the disastrous fifth century. In this episode, we examine how and why it survived Attila the Hun and a host of other problems through the eyes of a family of soldiers and bureaucrats.

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I'm joined by Mike Duncan, host of The History of Rome and Revolutions podcast and author of the upcoming book The Storm Before the Storm: The Beginning of the End of the Roman Republic. We discuss his new book - which is excellent! - along with whether the United States is Rome, the practice of history, storytelling, and much more.

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You can preorder Mike's book here: https://www.amazon.com/Storm-Before-Beginning-Roman-Republic/dp/1610397215

As the fifteenth century turned into the sixteenth, warfare was transformed. Cannon made castles obsolete, and firearms and pikes displaced knights as the dominant force on the battlefield. Most of all, the scale of war grew infinitely larger, with a correspondingly greater impact on society as a whole.

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The Military Revolution transformed warfare, but what was it like to be one of the soldiers who experienced those enormous changes? We follow the lives and careers of two English archers in the late stages of the Hundred Years War and two German mercenaries around 1500 to try to understand what the Military Revolution meant for real people.

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I'm joined by Dr. Jennifer Raff, assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Kansas, to discuss her work with DNA. Dr. Raff explains how DNA is rewriting our understanding of prehistory and migration and changing everything we thought we knew about the deep past.

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I'm joined by historian Dan Jones, author of some of the best popular history out there (The Wars of the Roses, The Plantagenets) to discuss his new book on the fascinating Knights Templar (The Templars: The Rise and Spectacular Fall of God's Holy Warriors). We discuss the Templars, the Crusades, and what's familiar and foreign about the Middle Ages.

Check out Dan's new book here: https://www.amazon.com/Templars-Rise-Spectacular-Fall-Warriors/dp/0525428305/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1507135075&sr=8-1&keywords=the+templars+dan+jones

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